A support MOS like the ones you are looking at will actually make it more likely that you can get a school slot than if you were a grunt, but don't look at it as a guarantee. First, a slot has to be available, then your unit has to have enough time in the rear, then you have to be in a non-critical position so your command can bear to let you go, and finally you have to get recommended for the school by your command. The current deployment schedule reduces your chances some.

As far as security forces goes (embassies), that is a B-billet, meaning you have to finish a tour at your first duty station before you can get those kind of orders. You also have to meet certain requirements before you are accepted, just so that the Corps can be sure you won't embarrass them in a foreign land.

A few pointers: Learn to run long distances, pack on some strength so you can function in body armor, develop thick callouses on your feet, and teach your body to process large quantities of water.

I would advise anyone joining the Marines, or any branch of service for that matter, to choose your job wisely. For better or worse, you'll be doing it for 40+ hours a week for four years. Now, that can vary with the type of unit you get assigned to, meaning if you're a mechanic and get attached to a MEU(SOC) you'll be doing some pretty high-speed grunt stuff, but most of the time, you're still a mechanic.

That being said, you should either do something in the military that you want to do in the civilian world or something in the military that you could never do in the civilian world. For example, if you wanted to be a paralegal when you got out, become a legal clerk and you'll have the training, experience and discipline to beat out any other applicants. On the other hand, you'll never get to drive a tank or shoot a TOW missile in the civilian world (without going to jail).

I guess what I'm trying to say is pick one path and go whole hog. Don't do something like supply that isn't very "military" and has practically zero civilian application.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have been a translator. Knowing Chinese or Russian would be very useful to me now.

I want to be a Marine very badly, which is why i've pursued this branch as opposed to all the others. For a lot of reasons, i'll probably get into at another time.

Anyhow, I want to be a Martial Arts instructor in the Marine Corps. I realize i need a primary MOS, and must spend 2 years in that before i can do something else, but i'm asking:

Have any of you done/know of anyone who has done this?

Hi Moose,

I was a MCMAP instructor once upon a time (certification currently lapsed due to increase in rank and general suckiness of my job). As far as I know, the only full-time MCMAP instructor billets are at the schoolhouses, and if there were more than a hundred guys in the entire Marine Corps doing it at any given time, I'd be surprised. Even if you were to get lucky and get one of those few billets (which everybody and their brother's dog pulls in favors to get), you'd do it for two/three years and then you're right back to working in that primary MOS you mentioned.

Back in April, you were talking about just wanting college (thread here). You seem to have decided you really want to be a Marine -- good on you! It's a great opportunity and a great thing and it's been an important part of my life.

But, dude, that primary MOS is what you'll do. MCMAP is not the big deal you think it is. It's an additional duty at best, as a martial art it falls considerably below basic MT/BJJ at your local MMA gym, and your time as an instructor is largely spent running boring gray belt course after gray belt course for clueless new guys every few months. (Forward Horizontal Elbow Strike! tweet! tweet! tweet! Vertical Elbow Strike, Low-to-High! tweet! tweet! If you think it's all rolling and tough-guy fighting and kewl moves with guns you're sadly misinformed.) Do not expect to build a career around MCMAP.

Drop me a PM if you have any questions about the Marines in general or MCMAP in particular and I'll be glad to do what I can to answer them -- I always want to encourage good folks to consider the Marine Corps. But I also try and make sure they're basing their decisions on information that least has a passing familiarity with reality :new_usa:

I never did get to do either of those. But I did fire all of the following at one time or another while I was in:
<list of cool guns>

What, no Colt 1911? You missed out. I learned to shoot pistol on one of those, back in the day. You could nail tacks with it, and it actually had a hope of stopping something larger than a small dog (unlike the crappy NATO-round M9 they replaced it with).

I've been reading this whole thread now and seen the reactions of various guys.
Maybe its not such a good idea for you to join.

Though ive met several us, dutch and english marines over the years i hardly know anything about it.

But i know some things:

Recruiters like mentionned before will always leave things out and paint a better picture of army life then reality is.

You can marvel at the idea of free education etc. but in the end of the day you're in the us marine corps and basically you guys exist to do whatever some old dudes in charge want you to do, kill or get killed.
get disabled? well good luck and take care!

Im very cynical about people who join the army and think it will make a great carreer.
In the end an army consists of fit young men who are send to do the dangerous work to serve the strategy/politics of their nation.
nothing less, nothing more.

so if thats allright with you, then join, but do it for the right reasons.

you basically have 2 type of guys and apporaches: the one who sees it like i just described it and the the second one who falls for the 'honour and glory' bullcrap.

edit: i forgot to say this: if you're someone from a social background that provides little chances and all, then its worth considering, but if you have the chance to get a good education and carreeroptions without involving the army then count your blessings and persue that.

Have you considered getting some college under your belt before signing up?

I don't know how the Marines work but in the Army if you have college before joining you can either come in at a higher enlisted rank (either E-3 with some college or E-4 with a degree) or you can come in as an Officer if you have a degree.